"Miss, what's history?" "Cataclysm forming now. Tea once hot, sits warm."   We dreamed to be them. When scraping marrow from bones, and...

Maria pondered the painting that hung above the sofa in the small apartment she shared with Lincoln.  It was just two people sitting in...

Absence, obscene, obsolete, absolute.   ‘Paint the space that is not’, they said. ‘Express the vase of flowers through the absence of vase’. Like calculating the motion of orbiting stars. I drew the space that is not, and the eye of chocolate cosmos stared out like black punctures in the space-time continuum, collapsing beneath the weight of the denial of their existence.   Are the strokes of my brush now obsolete, now that images bloom from keystrokes? Who am I kidding, they

Presence? Nope Presents? Nope Absents? Nope Sorry folks – too hard. Absence? Absence of words to describe the presence of absence. Easy...

She looked out the window and cried. She was in despair. Her life had fallen apart. He was gone. Gone, but not only out of the house, but out of her life and even out of the country. How could he do that to her.   He said he couldn’t take it anymore. Her endless demands, her endless selfishness, her endless righteousness and her endless self-obsession.   She couldn’t understand it. She knew, she knew more than him. She knew, she knew better than him. She knew, she knew she wa

“Hey Siri. What’s the time?” “It’s 9:05.” 9:05! No wonder it’s so warm and bright! How on earth did I sleep until 9:05? I sit bolt...

We waited and waited…and waited and waited. His absence was noted and noted…and noted. Why were we always waiting for him?   His importance was great…in his own mind. His constant absence was great in our minds.   ‘What a cock’ Mike said.   ‘I’m over it’, Caroline said.   ‘He’s a Pratt’, Jean said.   We all fell quiet and waited some more.   ‘Why are we waiting?’ Elle queried.   ‘Because he has the key.’   ‘Oh right.’   ‘Well, let’s just break in.’   ‘Ok’, they all chimed.  

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or - as in my as my former beloved once wittily informed me- ‘Absence makes the fond heart wander’....

“Hiya, I’m Miles.  6’2”, beer-bellied, broad with full Ned-Kelly beard.  I have a Sinead hairstyle (vale Sinead), lots of wigs but love my Dolly and Cher the best.  Dusky Rose and Magenta are my fav nail colours, always one Crypt Black.  Lotsa frocks, stylish suits, evening wear of course, red pumps and my C-F-M-Boots, fishys, sheers, with nice tasteful jewellery, accoutrements and rings.  But sometimes, just trackies, plaids and Uggs.  Don’t like much fluff and flounces.  I’

Absent Absent Hollow? No. Gone Girl, alone? no, just invisible, not fully present, but mostly, just not. Absent "oustay oo-senta" in...

He sat, a stool staring out across the wide green valley.  Mountains each side creating a V of green amidst almost vertical slopes of rock.  Sheer faces standing over the valley succumbing its existence.  He wandered what had happened in the green Shangrila over its eons?  So many tragedies and glories had been fought for and die here, now part of the soil, enriching the green so bright in the sun it almost hurt his eyes.   He drifted back into memories of past.  The battles

Muffling dawn stirs, settles a cold mist and bows the soft brome.  The village bodach wheezingly, struggles onto one elbow, shakingly dropping back to his fliuch pillowcase and damp sheets.    Breathing is now like sucking mead through rough linen damask.  Eyes demented red and bulging.  Hands shaking ‘ta crith air’ as his heart beats the rattle of a demonic bodhran.   His bleary eyes search and cry out for his sweet Roisen but she left with Manannan mac Lir a long time afore

They stepped forward one and all to help where they could. The others couldn’t be there. They had a different purpose.   The monster that tore them apart, had pushed them together. It was big, it was cruel, and it was unrelenting.   Tiring days and late nights. They shared the knowledge that they were as good as the others, and that they could do what the others could do, and that they were equal or better than equal. They could do anything.   They toiled and they provided fo

Cockatoo listens. Yaris serpentine belt shrieks. Plaintive song to one.

She was to blame, the siren. It was her fault. She lured them into things they didn’t want to do.   They didn’t want to hit the rocks, but she made them do it.   They didn’t want to see other women, but she made them do it.   She was a siren, who gave them the excuse they needed to do what they wanted, but once it was done, they needed someone to blame and it was she the siren. She was to blame for their pathetic weakness.   She looked on with disgust. No accountability, no r

Those damn sirens!   Just when I had gotten into the swing of mopping decks in the relative freedom of mere shackles—sans being tethered...

Red heat blisters skin unless wrapped in heavy woollen greatcoats, shields, and gloves.  Goggles and ear muffs unable to stop pain.   Giant brick-lined iron ladles slop molten steel across the foundry.  Massive gloves and coats, aprons, thick face shields struggle.   Red-glowing iron bars snake through ramming, compressing, shuddering mill-blocks squeezing thinner and longer.  Standing on guides, men push flaming bars through the next guide, furnace, mill-block.   Raw coal at

Heat and flames burning bushy eyebrows, aromatic smoke wafting, Nandolnd, the crumpled gnome, moves the long-handled broadtruele inside his 400-year-old cob oven to allow his loaves equal touching of the muffled flames.    “Glonadir, my son, it’s our family honour to create the hleifr for our village.”   He slides the pole in practiced thrusts, a blade of grace, to keep the bread moving inside the hearth.  With gnarled knuckles glistening, the best loaf flings from the oven m

Two days until my wedding. I cannot move from this house. The locks are bigger than my head, the windows high out of reach, so high they look out above the winter sky which crawls along the ground outside. Snowflakes fall in the room and they do not melt on my hand when I catch them.   When the light fades the locks churn and turn, the door opens, the shadows gather into the form that is the Beast. My heart is frozen, else I would dissolve in fear.   One day before my wedding